1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical instrument management support apparatus for supporting the management of scopes used for an endoscopic examination.
2. Description of the Related Art
Scopes used for endoscopic examinations need to be cleaned every time the examinations are finished. Therefore, an apparatus for cleaning (hereinafter, referred to as a cleaning apparatus), which is used for cleaning used scopes, is installed in a medical facility. Medical facilities stock enough number of scopes and cleaning apparatuses used for the maximum number of examinations at the facilities.
[Patent document No. 1] JP 2007-202604
[Patent document No. 2] JP 2002-15073
In the case where there are multiple cleaning apparatuses, a failure in the operation of even one apparatus will lower the overall cleaning capacity of the cleaning apparatuses. The decreased cleaning capacity may result in the cancellation or the delay of a scheduled examination. In order to avoid the cancellation or the delay of an examination, it is necessary to restock scopes in advance from, for example, an outside maintenance company.
In the past, there were some occasions where the delay in making a request for restocking scopes to a maintenance company, etc., resulted in a delay of the delivery of the scopes, causing the expected arrival time for the restocking to be missed. There were also some occasions as a result where requests for restocking scopes were made even when restocking the scopes was not necessary. These result from misjudging whether or not there will be a shortage of scopes in the course of an examination schedule of a day.